Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	ambassador_n	king_n	pope_n	4,544	5	7.1893	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70610	Essays of Michael, seigneur de Montaigne in three books : with marginal notes and quotations and an account of the author's life : with a short character of the author and translator, by a person of honour / made English by Charles Cotton ...; Essais. English	Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592.; Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of, 1633-1695.; Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.	1700 (1700)	Wing M2481; ESTC R17025	313,571	634

themselves very perfect in their Tale. Of which I have had very Pleasant Experience at the Expence of such as Profess only to form and accommodate their Speech to the Affair they have in hand or to the Humour of the Person with whom they have to do for the Circumstances to which these men stick not to enslave their Consciences and their Faith being subject to several Changes their Language must accordingly vary From whence it happens that of the same thing they tell one Man that it is this and another that it is that giving it several Forms and Colours which Men if they once come to confert Notes and find out the Cheat what becomes of this fine Art To which may be added that they must of Necessity very often ridiculously trap themselves for what Memory can be sufficient to retain so many different Shapes as they have forg●d upon one and the same Subject I have known many in my Time very ambitious of the repute of this fine piece of Discretion but they do not see that if there be a Reputation of being wise there is really no Prudence in it In plain Truth Lying is a hateful and an accursed Vice We are not Men nor have other Tye upon one another but our Word If we did but discover the Horror and ill Consequences of it we should pursue it with Fire and Sword and more justly than other Crimes I see that Parents commonly and with Indiscretion enough correct their Children for little innocent Faults and torment them for wanton childish Tricks that have neither Impression nor tend to any Consequence whereas in my Opinion Lying only and what is of something a lower Form Stomach are the Faults which are to be severely whip'd out of them both in the Infancy and Progress of the Vices which will otherwise grow up and increase with them and after a Tongue has once got the Knack of lying 't is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it Whence it comes to pass that we see some who are otherwise very honest Men so subject to this Vice I have an honest Lad to my Taylor who I never knew guilty of one Truth no not when it had been to his Advantage If Falshood had like Truth but one Face only we should be upon better Terms for we should then take the contrary to what the Lyar says for certain Truth but the Reverse of Truth has an hundred thousand Figures and a Field indefinite without Bound or Limit The Pythagoreans make Good to be certain and finite and Evil infinite and uncertain there are a thousand ways to miss the White there is only one to hit it For my own part I have this Vice in so great horror that I am not sure I could prevail with my Conscience to secure my self from the most manifest and extream Danger by an impudent and solemn Lye An ancient Father says That a Dog we know is better Company than a Man whose Language we do not understand Plin. Nat. Hist lib. 7 cap. 1. Ut externus non alieno sit hominis vice As a Foreigner to one that understands not what he says cannot be said to supply the Place of a Man because he can be no Company And how much less sociable is false Speaking than Silence King Francis the First bragg'd that he had by this means non-plus'd Francisco Taverna the Embassador of Francisco Sforza Duke of Milan a Man very famous for his Eloquence in those days This Gentleman had been sent to excuse his Master to his Majesty about a thing of very great Consequence which was this King Francis to maintain evermore some intelligence in Italy out of which he had lately been driven and particularly in the Dutchy of Milan had thought it to that end convenient to have evermore a Gentleman on his Behalf to lie Leiger in the Court of that Duke an Ambassador in Effect but in outward Appearance no other than a private Person who pretended to reside there upon the single Account of his own particular Affairs which was so carried by reason that the Duke much more depending upon the Emperour especially at a time when he was in a Treaty of a Marriage with his Neece Daughter to the King of Denmark and since Dowager of Lorrain could not own any Friendship or intelligence with us but very much to his own Prejudice For this Commission then one Merveille a Milanois Gentleman and Epuerry to the King being thought very fit he was accordingly dispatch'd thither with private Letters of Credence his Instructions of Ambassador and other Letters of Recommendation to the Duke about his own private Concerns the better to colour the Business and so long continued in that Court that the Emperour at last had some Incling of his real Employment there and complain'd of it to the Duke which was the Occasion of what followed after as we suppose which was that under Pretence of a Murther by him committed his Tryal was in two days dispath'd and his Head in the Night struck off in Prison Signior Francisco then being upon this Account come to the Court of France and prepar'd with a long counterfeit Story to excuse a thing of so dangerous Example for the King had apply'd himself to all the Princes of Christendom as well as to the Duke himself to demand Satisfaction for this Outrage upon the Person of his Minister had his Audience at the morning Council where after he had for the Support of his Cause in a long premeditated Oration laid open several plausible Justifications of the Fact he concluded that the Duke his Master had never look●d upon this Merveille for other than a private Gentleman and his own Subject who was there only in order to his own Business neither had he ever liv'd after any other manner absolutely disowning that he had ever heard he was one of the King 's Domestick Servants or that his Majesty so much as knew him so far was he from taking him for an Ambassadour When having made an end and the King pressing him with several Objections and Demands and sifting him on all hands gravell'd him at last by asking why then the Execution was perform'd by Night and as it were by Stealth At which the poor confounded Ambassador the more handsomly to disingage himself made Answer That the Duke would have been very loath out of Respect to his Majesty that such an Execution should have been perform'd in the Face of the Sun Any one may guess if he was not well school'd when he came home for having so grosly trip'd in the Presence of a Prince of so delicate a Nostril as King Francis Pope Julius the Second having sent an Ambassadour to the King of England to animtate him against King Francis the Ambassadour having had his Audience and the King before he would give a positive Answer insisting upon the Difficulties he found in setting on foot so great a Preparation as would

be necessary to attack so Potent a King and urging some Reasons to that Effect the Ambassadour very unseasonably reply●d That he had also himself considered the same difficulties and had represented as much to the Pope From which saying of his so directly opposite to the Thing propounded and the Business he came about which was immediately to incite him to War the King first deriv'd Argument which also he afterwards sound to be true that this Ambassadour in his own private Bosom was a Friend to the French of which having advertis'd the Pope his Estate at his Return home was confiscate and himself very narrowly escap'd the losing of his Head CHAP. X. Of quick or slow Speech Onc ne fut à tous toutes Graces donnees All graces by All-liberal Heaven Were never yet to all men given AS we see in the Gift of Eloquence wherein some have such a Facility and Promptness and that which we call a present Wit so easie that they are ever ready upon all Occasions and never to be surpriz'd And others more heavy and slow never venture to utter any thing but what they have long Premeditated and taken great Care and Pains to fit and Prepare Now as we teach young Ladies those Sports and Exercises which are most Proper to set out the Grace and Beauty of those Parts wherein their chiefest Ornament and Perfection lie so in these two advantages of Eloquence to which the Lawyers and Preachers of our Age seem Principally to pretend If I were worthy to advise the slow Speaker methinks should be more Proper for the Pulpit and the other for the Bar and that because the Employment of the first does naturally allow him all the Leisure he can desire to prepare himself and besides his Carreer is perform'd in an even and unintermitted Line without stop or interruption whereas the Pleader's Business and Interest compells him to enter the Lists upon all Occasions and the unexpected Objections and Replies of his adverse Party justle him out of his Course and put him upon the Instant to pump for new and extempore Answers and Defences Yet at the Interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at Marceilles it hapned quite contrary that Monsieur Poyet a man bred up all his Life at the Bar and in the highest Repute for Eloquence having the Charge of making the Harangue to the Pope committed to him and having so long meditated on it before-hand as it was said to have brought it ready made along with him from Paris the very day it was to have been pronounc'd the Pope fearing some thing might be said that might give Offence to the other Princes Ambassadors who were there attending on him sent to acquaint the King with the Argument which he conceiv'd most suiting to the Time and Place but by Chance quite another thing to that Monsieur de Poyet had taken so much Pains about So that the fine Speech he had prepared was of no use and he was upon the Instant to contrive another which finding himself unable to do Cardinal Bellay was constrain'd to perform that Office The Pleader's Part is doubtless much harder than that of the Preacher and yet in my Opinion we see more passable Lawyers than Preachers It should seem that the nature of Wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden and that of Judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow but he who remains totally silent for want of leisure to prepare himself to speak well and he also whom leisure does no ways benefit to better speaking are equally unhappy 'T is said of Severus Severus Cassius that he spoke best extempore that he stood more oblig'd to Fortune than his own Diligence that it was an advantage to him to be interrupted in speaking and that his Adversaries were afraid to nettle him lest his Anger should redouble his Eloquence I know experimentally a Disposition so impatient of a tedious and elaborate Premediation that if it do not go frankly and gayly to work can perform nothing to purpose We say of some Compositions that they stink of Oyl and smell of the Lamp by reason of a certain rough harshness that the laborious handling imprints upon those where great Force has been employ'd but besides this the solicitude of doing well and a certain striving and contending of a mind too far strain'd and over-bent upon its Undertaking breaks and hinders it self like Water that by force of its own pressing violence and abundance cannot find a ready issue through the neck of a Bottle or a narrow Sluce In this condition of Nature of which I was now speaking there is this also that it would not be disorder'd and stimulated with such a Passion as the Fury of C●ssius for such a Motion would be too violent and rude it would not be justled but sollicited and would be rouz'd and heated by unexpected sudden and accidental Occasions If it be left to it self it flags and languishes Agitation only gives it grace and vigour I am always worst in my own possession and when wholly at my own dispose Accident has more title to any thing that comes from me than I Occasion Company and even the very rising and falling of my own Voice extract more from my Fancy than I can find when I examine and employ it by my self by which means the things I say are better than those I write if either were to be preferr'd where neither are worth any thing This also befalls me that I am at a loss when I seek and light upon things more by chance than by any inquisition of my own Judgment I perhaps sometimes hit upon something when I write that seems queint and spritely to me but will appear dull and heavy to another But let us leave this Subject Every one talks thus of himself according to his Talent For my part I am already so lost in it that I know not what I was about to say and in such cases a stranger often finds it out before me If I should always carry my Razor about me to use so oft as this inconvenience befalls me I should make clean work but some Occurrence or other may at some other time lay it as visible to me as the Light and make me wonder what I should stick at CHAP. XI Of Prognostications FOr what concerns Oracles it is certain that a good while before the coming of our Saviour Christ they began to lose their Credit for we see that Cicero is troubled to find out the cause of their decay in these words Cic. de Divin l. 2. Cur isto mod● jam Oracula Delphis eduntur non modo nostra aetate sed jam diu ut nihil possit esse contemptius What should be the reason that the Oracles at Delphos are so utter'd not only in this Age of ours but moreover a great while ago that nothing can be more contemptible But as to the other Prognosticks calculated from the Anatomy of Beasts at